The Houston Rockets’ center Yao Ming joined forced with WildAid, a conservation group, to help protect shark populations around the world. This Public Service Announcement (PSA), graphical illustrates the cruel fate these sharks suffer. Each year, more than 70 million sharks are used for shark fin soup. In most cases, the sharks are caught, finned, and then simply dumped overboard to die.

Back in 2006, Yaho Ming signed a pledge to give up shark fin soup, and has been a Chinese ambassador for WildAid. Being China’s most popular figure Ming is in an excellent position to lead this campaign.

In this PSA, Ming is shown in a beautiful restaurant with an incredible aquarium, being offered shark fin soup. The camera then shows real futage of a live tawny nurse shark with it’s fins chopped off.

“This footage is definitive proof that sharks are being finned alive for soup,” said Steve Trent, Director of WildAid, continuing, “The spiraling demand for fin to be consumed for soup, mostly in China, is having a devastating impact on shark populations across the world. Key to halting the conservation crisis now facing sharks is to kill of the demand for shark fin and this is why the action being taken by Yao Ming who has led a host of others to join him is so important. The message that he will no longer eat shark fin has great impact in China.”

A recent study conducted by the IUCN Shark Specialist Group showed that 64 species or open water sharks and ray are threatened with extinction. With the combination of overfishing, their late maturity, and slow reproduction, sharks are in extreme danger.